The Winds of Autumn
by Helena Gray
Summary: A companion piece to the episode "Timeless," Tessa Omond and Chakotay spend their last night together. T/C, but ultimately J/C.


**A/N:** I know — there are other things I should be doing right now (Lifeline, for example!), but I just re-watched _Timeless_ , and, well...I couldn't let this go! This is another one of those stories that just sort of poured out of me, and truly, I just _had_ to write it. I hope you like it, and that the T/C stuff isn't too annoying — it just felt like there was something here, with her, that needed to be explored. Ultimate J/C, of course, but life, feelings, are always a bit more complicated than we intend...

* * *

 _The passing days and months  
are eternal travelers in time.  
_—Basho

* * *

 _Autumn wind –_  
 _mountain's shadow_  
 _wavers._

 _Don't weep, insects –_  
 _Lovers, stars themselves,_  
 _must part._

—Issa

* * *

When she was a child, Tessa Omond would take long, solitary hikes in the woods near her home in rural New England, often disappearing for the better part of a day.

It felt a natural thing, roaming freely along trails, up over hills and into mountains, and she was never afraid to go. Amongst old stone fences, the ruins of long-ago mills, and the dazzling old-growth maple, birch, and white-pine trees, she found a strange, wondrous bliss she'd later spend her adult years trying to recreate.

Sometimes her brothers were sent out to find her, when she was missing dinner or something of similar importance, but as the youngest of eight children, Tessa enjoyed a unique and early freedom she didn't understand until much later wasn't typical. Other children her age didn't usually get to encounter their environments so unhindered by rules and restrictions. At the very least, most never left home without a communicator, and attached to it a parent's ability to call for an instant transport home.

It wasn't that Tessa was ignored, exactly; it was more that after raising seven others, one already off at Starfleet Academy, another studying drama at Julliard, her parents had learned well to relax the leash. By the time Tessa came around, there really wasn't a "leash" at all anymore, and more often than not, she was parented by her older siblings still at home. By default, she was more mature than other children her age, and she tended to watch, fascinated if not perplexed, as they engaged in jejune bouts of deception, jealousy and anger, struggling to come into their own, a feat which she had already accomplished well ahead of her time.

When she was a bit older, friends would remark that her family home seemed more like a commune, and indeed it was rather, with extended family, friends, interlopers often making temporary or long-term residence at the large, historic Queen-Anne farmstead.

Her decision years later to enroll in Starfleet Academy was met by some closest to her with skepticism, others with neutral approval, but no one was surprised when, two years later, she dropped out.

One of her professors, recognizing her unique, innate brilliance, urged her to stay, but most others maintained she was unfit for the rigors of office. She wanted to explore, got the highest marks in all of her classes, but Starfleet life felt too structured and restrictive.

She spent the next year exploring deep space on her own terms, hitching rides, hopping from one adventure to the next, taking it all in with her open, free-spirited intellect.

By a strange coincidence at which she would later marvel, she was on Deep Space 9 when the Federation's new Intrepid-class starship _Voyager_ arrived on its first mission, and she was there, still, when it ventured into the Badlands and vanished without a trace. The shocking news had ricocheted through the space station in short order, and Tessa had had the strange experience of being an outsider witnessing the aftermath while feeling a nagging _pull_ that she should actually be a part of it.

Six months later she returned to Earth, and, with the help of her brother, a respected captain by then, re-enrolled at the Academy. She graduated with honors, distinguishing herself in the fields of quantum mechanics and interstellar propulsion, and looked forward to shipping out on a deep-space mission.

She was crushed when, instead, she was assigned a two-year stint on _Utopia Planitia._

Begrudgingly, she did as she was bid and took the assignment, but it was shortly thereafter when she met a man who would steal her from the doldrums, completely capturing her heart and beckoning she follow him down a wild, dangerous path, whose ultimate outcome was most certainly death or court-martial.

She lay next to him now, awake and musing over the years of her life, which were all more or less coalescing in her mind, into the present moment where she drew breath and reveled in the warm body snoring very lightly against her side.

He had loved her so well, in spite of everything.

It had not taken long, after their meeting, for her to recognize that part of him was shattered, and that it wasn't of the kind that just went away with time. And of course she knew — everyone knew — how much he had lost. Friends. Family. _His crew._ Still he'd put on his officer's uniform, accepted handshakes and condolences, made speeches recounting his journey, honoring his crewmen gone. He'd been downright numb, as frozen as _Voyager_ herself beneath the ice, in those first many months.

She was drawn to him as she'd not been drawn to anyone else before, and, gradually at first, she worked her way into his heart.

She knew well before she first told him she loved him that she could never have the whole of him. That he would never be able to return her love in quite the same way, and that their deepest, truest feelings for each other would always be unmatched and unequal. But it didn't matter — she simply loved him — even more so, in fact, when she understood how much he had truly lost on _Voyager_.

He roused from sleep just then, and as he became aware of his surroundings, he smiled warmly at her, though his eyes were colored with sadness.

She knew he would genuinely miss her — well, until he didn't know there was a "her" to miss.

He'd wrestled with a lot of guilt over the years, because no matter how hard he had tried, no matter what he did, he simply could not change the fact that the whole of his heart already belonged to another.

Tessa would watch, calmly and with deep, forgiving love as he tried and tried. He'd told her once, that it would almost be easier if she could hate him for what he could not give her. She'd laughed gently then, kissed him, and told him all they could do was live and love as they were capable in the moment, and that she was happy with what they had. Her acceptance of him was unyielding, and more than once it had nearly pulled him from his course. She'd had none of it, though, because she knew the truth of things — she knew him — and so at times she was the one who held them to the path.

Chakotay nuzzled into her neck, kissed her there, and then traced a gentle trail up to her ear. She turned to him then, found his lips, and thought, as she had several hours earlier, about how _this_ might be the last time. The urgency they both felt, on what would likely be their last night together, tangled with and against the need to draw everything out, to make as much of a _forever_ out of what they had while they still could.

Tessa pushed away her melancholy and lost herself in their lovemaking. It wasn't hard to do; he had always had a distinct, potent link to the core of her desire, as if the very biology of her being was created to respond most fully and completely to him alone.

He was older than she was, salt and pepper that was becoming more salt, but she had always been a soul older than her years and there they were matched. Throughout her life she'd had little patience for men her own age, still seeming to need, as they often did, more time to come into maturity. Chakotay was different, and of everyone she had been with, he was the epitome of her heart's desire.

She would miss this — though, if all went as planned, soon enough she'd never know it had even existed.

All the more reason to feel everything she could, right now, in this moment. Emboldened, she straddled him, back arched, and absorbed every sensation, every touch he offered.

Later, pulses slowed, lying awake and wrapped together, Tessa drew a hand to his cheek, pulled his gaze to hers.

"Tell me about her," she said, seemingly from nowhere.

He shifted uncomfortably, let out an exasperated sigh, "Tess, I don't want to spend our last —"

"No, Chakotay — I want to know. I want to know _her_." She sat up, turned to look down at him. There was nothing but love in her eyes — no anger or judgement — and, for not the first time, he marveled at her. "I mean, for all intents and purposes, Chakotay, I've loved her, too, all these years — in you."

It was something they hadn't really spoken of — the specifics of her. The _root_ of his abiding love, which was ultimately what had driven him down this dangerous path, joining cause with _Voyager's_ other survivor, Harry Kim.

There was a deep, poignant understanding between them, as they both knew the truth of his feelings, but they usually left it at that. Some things didn't need to be said; they just _were_.

It might have eaten away at them were it not for her gentle, steadfast insistence that they, instead, live what was right in front of them. Have what they could have.

Bits and pieces had emerged over time. Stories, memories. But still, Tessa felt that they never got to the heart of her, in him — not with words, anyway — and she was surprised still, at how much she didn't know about the woman who laid claim to the larger share of the man she loved.

She'd always invited him to say more, to dig deeper — and she always meant it when she did — but when it came to Kathryn Janeway, he would reach a point and then stop.

She'd never pushed too hard, but tonight was different. Silence settled between them, and she waited, patient. She knew he would give her anything tonight, even this.

He sat up, the covers slipping from his shoulders, and she shifted out in front of him so that they were facing each other squarely. To encourage him, and to assure that not only was this a conversation she wanted to have, it was one she insisted on having, she reached out and squeezed his hand, holding his gaze in the strong, unrelenting way of hers.

He let out a long breath, shook his head softly. Her persistence that was at once firm and gentle reminded him of Kathryn.

"What do you want to know?"

It wasn't really fair for him to push the ball back into her court, but it seemed he honestly didn't know where to begin.

"I just…want you to tell me about her. What she was like — what she _is_ like. I mean, I know everything I could learn from a Starfleet personnel file, but Kathryn, the woman — I don't know her."

"I wish you could meet her," he said, and they shared a quick laugh at the notion, because they both knew such a meeting would completely set his world spinning, a jostling of things from which he would never quite recover. (And that he would be absolutely lying if he said he'd never indulged the fantasy of _having_ them both, together.)

"Who knows what the future will hold," she said, teasingly provocative, and then, returning: "When did you first know, that you loved her?"

He pressed his lips into a tight smile and thought of his early days on _Voyager;_ how it was, exactly, that the fiery Starfleet captain had so quickly calmed his anger, eased his sorrow, and established herself a permanent, statuesque presence in his heart. When was that _moment_ , when he knew — really knew — that she was his everything?

"It was…pretty early on. I wouldn't call it love at first sight or anything like that, but there was something _about_ her, from the start." He looked away, toward the far wall, needing a moment free from Tessa's gaze — Tessa, who loved him so completely, and whom he was essentially telling he'd not chosen. "We were…stranded on a planet together once, for several months. Long story as to the why, but the gist of it was that we'd both contracted an illness and couldn't leave until there was a cure."

He looked back at her — she'd grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed, wrapped it around herself, giving him full reign over the bed coverings — and she looked almost as if she were gathered for a campfire story, her eyes large and attentive. She was singular, not unlike his Kathryn, and he willed that her next — previous, future… _whenever_ (he cursed the chronological confusion of it all) lover be everything he could not be for her and much more.

And then his mind traveled back to _New Earth_ — his life there, all of the _almosts,_ and the peaceful serenity that had filled him when he'd allowed the truth of his love for Kathryn to simply _be._

"I'd resolved myself to spending the rest of my days on that planet with her. I knew she might find the cure, or that there was a chance _Voyager_ would come back with one, but I set to building my life there. _Our lives,_ there…" He closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head as if brushing off the next memory that came to mind.

"I knew with certainty then that I loved her, but it had happened before that. _New Earth_ — the planet — was just when I truly acknowledged it. I…" he let out a quick, breathy laugh. "I even made up a story — a legend — to tell her how I felt."

Tessa smiled. "Oh, I can picture that. That's lovely — a legend. That's so very _you_."

"Right, well…" he felt odd brush of self-consciousness, as he thought of the "legend" itself, and of Tessa so clearly envisioning him telling it, but women always knew, didn't they? How much had he learned about himself over the years, simply from what he saw of what _they_ saw?

He cleared his throat. "At that point Kathryn was still technically engaged to a man back on Earth. She threw her all into the research, working to find a cure so that we could leave — and that was a thing about her. She had this _stubbornness_. A raw grit and fire that drove her — and she always gave herself fully to whatever she set her mind to. If a mountain blocked her path, she would find a way to move it…

"So, unlike me, she was not resolved to our fate. But later, when her laboratory equipment was damaged in a storm, that began to change."

"Were you together, then? Did she…" Tessa left him to fill in the blanks.

"Not exactly. But one evening, we were down by the lake, watching the night sky, making up constellations and silly mythologies to go with them, laughing at each other as the stories became nonsensical. We were literally the only two humanoids on the planet — it was like we owned the whole damn place. I guess we did. Anyway, eventually it got chilly, and we decided to head back to our camp." He closed his eyes, not really meaning to, but the memory was so precious, and so close still, even after all this time. He could smell the air as it was that night — the soft, piney undertones, and the smoke on their clothes, from their earlier fire, which they'd taken to cooking with sometimes, for the pure joy of it. And he could _feel_ her hand as he helped her up, see her stepping in rather than away, not letting it go.

"We stood there by the lake for a time, the dim light of the small, twin satellites illuminating us, and then she told me that she needed time, to put things right with Mark — her fiancé — in her head. That she'd probably write a letter, or something of the sort, just to work it all through. It was important for her, to have a firm, decided path. And then she told me how she felt. That she couldn't imagine her life without me, that she couldn't remember ever feeling this joyous and unfettered, with anyone. She drew my hand to her chest, told me how her heart soared, bid me to feel for myself, the proof, in her racing pulse. And I kissed her — how could I not. Told her to take her time, joked that we had plenty of it."

Tessa leaned close and brushed at his cheek with her fingers, wiping a wetness he didn't realize was there.

He cleared his throat again, forcing his voice that had grown soft back to a more normal tone. "It was two days later when _Voyager_ came back. They'd found a cure for the illness, and we were free to rejoin them. Except, I'd never felt so far from _free_ in my life, because in going back to the ship, we, too, were going back. There was no erasing what had been, and what we had shared, but the path that had lit up like a beacon before us that night by the lake was no longer ours to explore."

He shook his head, willing himself back to the present, away from the clutch of that particular memory, which had many times threatened to undo him.

"Why not?" Tessa said, pulling him from his efforts.

"What?"

"You said the path was no longer yours to walk. Why not?"

"It's complicated, but it had a lot to do with the strength and nature of our feelings for one another, the fact that we were responsible for the crew, and that she didn't think we could attend to both things properly at the same time."

"You weren't convinced of that," Tessa observed.

"No. I wasn't. I thought we could do both, and I pleaded my case, a few weeks after we returned. It just…it just felt…inconceivable — wrong — that we wouldn't at least try. She sort of fell back on her engagement to Mark as a reason, now that we were back on a ship bound for the Alpha Quadrant, but I knew, and she later admitted, it was an excuse. The truth was, on _Voyager_ , she was afraid to lose her control."

"I can't imagine, how hard that must have been."

"It was, but over time we found a way to exist with and beside our feelings. And we continued to build a very deep and abiding friendship. It was painful sometimes, the way it would seem to hover just on the edge of things _,_ but even through those moments, we held on to what we _could_ have, and to hope…somehow." He sighed, feeling a little drained, reliving it all. "And then, just before…when it looked like we might get the ship back to Earth…the path was there again, and we knew, if we got back, it was ours…"

Tessa nodded and sat calmly, cocooned in her blanket, offering him space to breathe, to say more, or not.

He did what he almost always did in response to her knowing silences, and looked for more words.

"It wasn't all roses and wonderful — and that's not what I'm going back to. But I… _we…_ She's a part of me. Without her, I am… _diminished_. It's hard to explain."

It wasn't that it didn't hurt. It did — it always did — but Tessa had never been one to fight against things she could not change.

"I understand, what you mean," she said.

He was immediately and plainly guilt-stricken at her words, and so she went on, speaking her truth. "We have had some wonderful years together, Chakotay. I wouldn't trade them for anything." And then she laughed at herself — "Well, except for the chance to help you get back where you belong. I'd trade them for that."

He reached out and pulled her back against him, positioning her blanket over them both. "I would never have come this far without you, Contessa May Omond."

She cringed at his use of her full name, threw a fist at his arm.

"I wouldn't have come this far without you, Tess."

"Better. And… _I know."_ He could feel her smile against his shoulder.

They didn't sleep any more that night; instead they talked. Traded stories — about their childhoods, their families, and Starfleet; about _Voyager —_ and Kathryn. When morning came, and it was time to prepare, Tessa felt it again, the sensation of the years of her life rolling together, coalescing into everything she was in the present moment. She supposed it was what one tended to feel, when they were about to alter history, ending their own existence as they knew it. She laughed at the absurdity of it all. It had been a good life, lived on her own terms, and there was nothing about it she would take back.

Her thoughts continued to wander, as if the moment begged she revisit the most affecting times of her life.

In her mind, it was autumn, the full spectrum of New England's most majestic season splayed across the landscape, and she could see Monadnock in the distance, wrapped in gold and orange. The soft, lofty hemlocks near her whispered in the breeze, and when the trail turned and the trees parted at the top of the ridge, the full vista took her breath away. She sat back on the rocks there and watched the scene with quiet awe. It was a moment of pure bliss and absolute perfection, and somehow she knew it even then, at her young age.

A hand on her shoulder drew her back to the present.

"Ready?" He said, and while she could still see the sadness in his eyes, which was for her, there was also now a levity, a hope, and a reticent, joyous anticipation. And she knew without a doubt that she was where she should be.

"Yes," she said, a lifetime behind her simple word.


End file.
